president trump: i heard where they said the assassination of president by the united states, never even discussed. the book is total fiction. just like he wrote in the past about other presidents. look at what he said about president bush what he said about president obama, big, scandalous thing, it lasts for about a day. no that was never even contemplated nor would it be contemplated and it should not have been written about in the book. it's just more fiction. the book is total fiction. >> please make your way out. >> let's go. president trump: thank you very much. >> also today, president trump met with republican congressional leaders at the white house. he spoke about government funding, border security, and trade negotiations with canada. his is 10 minutes.

president trump: are you all comfortable with the cameras behind you? some people get very uncomfortable. thank you very much. i want to thank members of the house and senate leadership for joining us today to discuss the september legislative agenda, including how we can responsibly fund the government prork tect the american taxpayers, and defend american security. we've got a -- we've gone a long way toward doing that, made tremendous progress over the last year and a half plus and this group is very special to the country and very special to me. it's a great group of people. i don't think they get recognized like they should for the job they've done. thank you to my good friend, speaker ryan, leader mcconnell, majority leader mccarthy, the most brave, the bravest person around, where is our guy? steve scalise. i saw you the other night on a very major program, good job.

it was great. you've done a great job. and senator cornyn. good job this morning. i was watching. senator, thank you very much. very much for being here. also i want to thank secretary neilsen and director mulvaney, they've been working very well with the group and with congress and a lot of progress is being made. in recent years due to the democrat's obstruction which is what they are, they're obstructionists, their whole campaign is called resist. that's about all they have going. the government has been forced to pass so-called omnibus spending bills where all of the spending is rolled into one giant package in a very rushed manner. last year i said we're not going to do that we don't want to do that again, we don't like it but we wanned to take care of our military, which we did. and we took it beautifully. they're rebuilding the military to a level it's never been at before. and also we've got $6 billion for the opioid crisis and that

was a very important thing if we didn't get that we would have some very big problems. so we took care of our military and spent a lot of money, we're spending a lot of money on working very hard on the opioid problem. i'm also pleased to say the senate and house republicans have responded in so many different way, they've made pretre progress in funding our government at the fastest pace, mitch, i think, since 2000, i've heard. so that's pretty fast pace. also i want to make good on a promise to fund border security, democrats want to abolish i.c.e., they want to, i guess, by abolishing i.c.e., they don't mind crime flooding into our country because that's exactly what would happen at a level like we've never seen before in the history of our country and republicans want to save american lives and support american law enforcement and that's what we're doing. no matter where i go, law enforcement comes up to me and say thank you so much mr. president. and they really mean it.

i want to make sure we pass the farm bill which is moving along nicely before the end they have month to help our great farmers. i strongly support the commonsense work requirement and the food stamps and the farm bill, we'll see if we can get that, the farmers would like to get that. we're negotiating as we speak with canada and canada's coming along, we'll see how it all works out, but we have to have a fair, i went call it nafta because we'll be changing the name, we don't want nafta, nafta has been bad for our country. we'll have a trade bill. i'll give you a sur prides just of the name when it's completed, it may have two or it may have three, we'll find out soon. i've enjoyed talking to the leaders, they've been spectacular to work with, i want to thank everybody, mitch and paul, you have all been great. we've made a lot of progress and will do a lot more. the country is doing on an

economic and financial basis probably better than it's done before. the markets are up almost 50% since my election victory which is something that in history i don't think anybody would be able to say. even in a much longer period they wouldn't be able to say it r the but a lot of great things are happening. unemployment is at the lowest levelss that ever been. and whether you look at african-american unemployment or asian unemployment or hispanic unemployment, at historic los. never in the history of our country has it been so good. women, 65 years. i always have a little fun with that when i say we're going to catch. because 65 years is good but 65 years is not as historic as historic. so we're doing very well and -- in just about every way. we'll let you know about canada. a lot of people are saying, how are you doing about canada? we should know over the next

two or three days. maybe even today. you will be the first to nofmente just one other point -- know. just one other point. the emir just left, of kuwait. we talked about the difficulties in the middle east and i will tell you that tremendous progress has been made with respect to iran. if you look at iran, the first day that i got to office, let's look at it differently. a day before i got to office, everybody was saying iran would be taking over the middle east. it was just a question of when. now they're just looking to survive. and we've made a lot of difference in the middle east. people are being pulled out of various areas of syria. people are being pulled out of areas of yemen because it's very tough right now for iran and when i came in, the iran deal was a disaster. ending the iran deal was a great thing for humanity. but we'll see how it all works out. we still have a ways to go. but iran is a very much

different place. we'll see what happens also as to whether or not they talk, if they want to talk, that's fine. if they don't want to talk, that's fine. just the final subject is china. we've done very well in our negotiation with china. but we're not prepared to make the deal that they'd like to make. we'll continue to talk to china. i have great respect for president xi. he's really a very special guy. but right now we just can't make that deal and the meantime, we're taking in billions of dollars of taxes coming in from china. and with the potential of billions and billions of dollars more taxes coming in. i don't like to see that china's markets have dropped by close to 25%. but that's what's happened over the last few months. their markets have gone down. i don't like to see that. i can tell you that the united states has picked up about $10 trillion in worth. and china would like to be in

our position. they would like to be in our position. so we'll see what is going on with respect to that. but we're doing very well in our discussions with china. we're doing maybe more importantly very well with respect to china. but hopefully that will all work out in the not too distant future. ok? hank you very much, everybody. reporter: -- [inaudible] -- replace secretary mattis. president trump: he just made the nicest quote about me i think i've ever had. in fact, mitch has never said anything so nice. [laughter] steve scalise has said something just as nice. but no. he just gave me, i think, because the book is a total piece of fiction, and he was totally -- not even misquoted. he never made the statement. he came out with the statement that honestly, you know, i've heard over the years that general mattis' -- is an -- mattis is an intellect. when i read his statement i asked whether or not this is true. he said, the not true and i'd

like to write a statement i said thank you very much. that's very nice. he wrote the most beautiful statement. he's a terrific person. he's doing a fantastic job as secretary of defense. reporter: and he'll stay in that job? president trump: yeah. he'll stay right there. we're very happy with him. we're having a lot of victories. we're having victories that people don't even know about. he's highly respected all over the world. and i did appreciate his statement because he didn't have to write that. but i did appreciate it and i appreciated the statement of john kelly. and i appreciate thed statement -- i appreciated the statement of many others. every week i seem to have a book coming out. some good, some bad. i get good ones too but i like to take them on when they come out. that's a piece of fiction. hank you, everybody. [yelling] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national able satellite corp. 2018]

president trump: bob woodward had the same problem with president obama. he had a tremendous problem with president bush. every time he wrote a book they were complaining about it. they were complaining about the lack of accuracy. and i understand. that's what he does. and i fully fruned that before -- fully understood that before. in the end i'm very happy with the way it turned out because i think the book has been totally discredited. thank you very much. yelling] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national able satellite corp. 2018] president trump: if it's about border security i'm willing to do anything. we have to protect our borders. if we don't protect our borders, our country is not going to be a country. so if it's about border security, i'm willing to do what has to be done. thank you very much. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] >> tomorrow night, the

president will be in billings, montana, to speak at a rally for republican senate candidate matt rosendale. we'll have live coverage starting at 9:00 p.m. eastern. coming up tonight, twitter c.e.o. jack dorsey and facebook chief operating officer cheryl sandberg testify before the senate intelligence committee on russian interference and u.s. election -- in u.s. elections. join us at 9:00 p.m. eastern right here on c-span. next, we'll take you to the cato institute in washington, d.c. for a look at what the intelligence community has learned since the september 11 terrorist attacks. this discussion runs about two hours.